Incarnation: A Franciscan View
Christ Is the Personal Template for All of Creation
Monday, June 1, 2015
The Franciscan philosopher and theologian St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (1217-1274) was an exemplary Franciscan mystic because he so effectively pulled his brilliant head down into his fiery heart. In Bonaventure’s writings you will find little or none of the medieval language of fire and brimstone, worthy and unworthy, sin and guilt, merit and demerit, justification and atonement, which has taken over in the last five centuries.
Bonaventure begins very simply: “Unless we are able to view things in terms of how they originate, how they are to return to their end, and how God shines forth in them, we will not be able to understand.” For Bonaventure, the perfection of God and God’s creation is quite simply a full circle, and to be perfect the circle must and will complete itself. He knows that Alpha and Omega are finally the same, and the lynchpin holding it all in unity is the “Christ Mystery,” or the essential unity of matter and spirit, humanity and divinity. The Christ Mystery is thus the template for all creation, and even more precisely the crucified Christ, who reveals the necessary cycle of loss and renewal that keeps all things moving toward ever further life. Now we know that the death and birth of every star and every atom is this same pattern of loss and renewal, yet this pattern is invariably hidden or denied, and therefore must be revealed by God—through “the cross.”
Bonaventure’s theology is never about trying to placate a distant or angry God, earn forgiveness, or find some abstract theory of justification. He is all cosmic optimism and hope! Once it lost this kind of mysticism, Christianity became preoccupied with fear, unworthiness, and guilt much more than being included in—and delighting in—an all-pervasive plan that is already in place. As Paul’s school taught, “Before the world was made, God chose us in Christ” (Ephesians 1:4). The problem is solved from the beginning. Bonaventure could have helped us move beyond the negative notion of history being a “fall from grace.” He invited us into a positive notion of history as a slow but real emergence/evolution into ever-greater consciousness of a larger and always renewed life (“resurrection”)—with the always necessary and resented push-back called loss, suffering, or “the cross.” When we talk about incarnation, what we’re really talking about is who we are: daughters and sons of God, inspirited flesh, and even “temples of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19). The final direction is thus inevitable.
Gateway to Silence:
The Christ is everywhere.
References:
Adapted from Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi, pp. 162-164,
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